


The Girl's a Straight Up Hustler

by charleybradburies



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Affection, Affectionate Insults, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Being Walked In On, Bickering, Canon Backstory, Canon Compliant, Canon Het Relationship, Canon Related, Character Development, Community: 1_million_words, Cultural References, Developing Relationship, Dinner, Disney References, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, Exes, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Food, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Friendship, Getting Back Together, Injury, Injury Recovery, Love, Major Character Injury, Make Out Interruptus, Making Out, Making Up, Not Actually Unrequited Love, One Shot, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 02, Recovery, Relationship Problems, Revelations, Romantic Angst, Romantic Gestures, Serious Injuries, Some Humor, Spies & Secret Agents, Swearing, Teasing, Undecided Relationship(s), which should totally be a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 09:44:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3973378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm still trying to figure out where I fit in, too. Just don't die out there, all right? But if you want to stay... stay."</p><p>Set after the S2 finale. Was supposed to be fluffy but it didn't totally work out that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Girl's a Straight Up Hustler

**Author's Note:**

> Spaghetti squash pasta is here because reasons. As in, my nutritionist just introduced me to it and it was kind of awesome actually. ~~And it gave me an excuse to make a minor Lady and the Tramp reference.~~
> 
> Title from the All Time Low song of the same name. Quote in the summary from Bobbi.

“You’re joking,” she suddenly says, and Lance startles.

“Thought you were still asleep, Bob.” 

“Yeah, well, I was, but there’s this one agent ‘round here, can’t walk quietly for the life o’ anyone, let _alone_ me.”

He shrugs, and moves the hospital-style bed’s tray over the bed so he can put the plate he’s brought in down on top of it; Bobbi rolls her eyes but surprisingly doesn’t actually stop him.

“Now, what the hell is this?”

“Spaghetti.”

“Yeah, Tramp, I see that it looks a _little_ like spaghetti.”

Lance scoffs as he pulls two cans of beer from his satchel and hangs the bag on the back of a chair in the corner of the room. 

“Spaghetti squash pasta,” he clarifies, and as he brings the chair over to the bedside he can see her scrunched nose, becoming all too aware of himself in the way that his heart jumps a little. She was _adorable,_ after all this time, and it was so fucked up of him to still think that, as though the woman who’d smashed him to pieces was a completely different woman from the one in front of him now.

Perhaps she was.

“And I reiterate: you’re joking,” she says demandingly, and he shakes his head.

“Not a bit. It’s good, though.”

“You brought me dinner that’s nothing but vegetables,” Bobbi whines.

“Did not. It has to simmer in tomato sauce. Tomato’s a fruit. Besides, I brought you a beer,” Lance replies, making sure to be completely serious.

“Some things never change,” she grumbles.

“What?” he asks after setting down two forks on the tray. 

“Still a jackass,” she declares.

“A jackass who brings you dinner. Chill, Bob.”

“Chill, Bob,” she repeats mockingly, but she picks up one of the forks anyway, pointing it at him.

“This had _better_ be good. Otherwise you definitely owe me an _actual_ spaghetti dinner,” she declares, and he waits until she’s stuffed a forkful of the squash - she never was one for easing into things - into her mouth to respond.

“Could’ve sworn I stopped paying for your shit a long time ago,” he moans, prying a few strands away from the plate with his own fork, and roughly the same amount cascades back onto the plate when she laughs reflexively. He chuckles at her; she points the fork back at him and, still chewing, calls him a jackass again. 

“But you _like_ it, don’t you?” he grins, trying to continue laughing as he chews his own forkful of squash. Bobbi growls as she pops open her beer.

“It’s not horrible, and I’m hungry as fuck. Cool your jets and stop smirking.”

“I’m not smirking.”

“You are, too!” 

“Nope. See, this is a problem we always had: you can’t read my expressions half as well as you think you can.”

“Maybe, but you’re still fucking smirking.”

“I’m _not_ smirking.”

“Yes, you are, dammit!” she yelps, laughing in frustration, and God, he could continue bickering all night just to see the smile it's put on her face - it feels like it's been eons since he's seen her really smile. 

“I am _smiling,_ Bob. I’m happy. You’re alive, and I’m happy.”

Bobbi sighs coldly, withdrawing back into the bed and looking away from him.

“You always _were_ a saccharine one.”

“And you were always an inhospitable one!” he jolts, and the casual rapport shatters. 

“All these years, you still think someone who’s happy about someone that they care about being alive is being _saccharine._ But you know what? You’re wrong. Maybe you honestly can’t tell what’s genuine or not when it comes to that, and that’s really fucking sad if that’s true. But what’s even sadder is that I don’t think that’s it. I think you’re just scared! I think you’ve always been scared, and I think it scares you even more that I know it, because you can’t hide it from me.”

He can feel it, all of it, all the weight of those years spent together and spent apart, rising within him, everything they carry pushing him to a brink - whether it’s anger or despair, he’s not sure. Never can be, with Bobbi, he’d learned long ago, so he decides on doing the only thing he can be sure of - he leaves. 

He sets the fork down on the tray, and picks up his beer, and starts to walk away just as he feels the first tears start streaking the tops of his cheeks. But the leaving doesn’t happen, because in an unprecedented turn of events, one of her still-bruised hands flies out and grabs his wrist.

“Please,” she whimpers, and the gloss in her eyes he sees when he turns himself back around to face her reminds him how truly hard this is for her - but still he makes his look expectant, knowing that he won’t get any more information if he only softens.

He’d have thought that he’d have seen the weakest of her, having been married to her and having been witness to her most recent, and most precarious, near-death experience, but apparently he’d be wrong about that. 

“I just…I’ve already driven you away once and I - I - I,” she stammers, her voice almost too quiet to hear, as though she's just as afraid of him hearing her as she is for him not to. 

“Part of why I took that bullet because I knew - I knew - I could never live - live through losing you again. Please, Lance, please, don’t leave me. You can’t leave me - I can’t handle…” Her voice trails off, her mouth remaining a little bit open as she gives up on the effort not to cry.

“I _can_ leave you, Bob,” he says, and he’s surprised at the solidity of his voice, especially as he feels the ache in his chest when what little hope had remained in her expression falls; but confusion trickles into its place as he turns his hand over to cue her to let go of his wrist and then wraps her hand in his. 

“But that doesn’t mean I _will._ ”

She properly meets his eyes again, and that hope returns, with another little gasp as she really starts letting herself cry, perhaps in realization that he's _still here._ That for all the anger, and the references to monsters and comic villains, and the years of refused calls and friend requests and heartbreaking emails, he's still irrevocably in love with her.

Her fingers tighten against his hand, and her other arm stretches out towards him; returning to her side he practically crashes into her, both of them hugging each other as tightly as they had at that most horrific reunion a few days ago. It’s comforting, but also concerning, because he’s felt her viselike grip before, and as this is even tighter, he can’t help but know that she’s been holding so much more than a lifetime’s share of other unsaid things and abandoned hopes. There must have been some of that there, during their marriage way back when, but he realizes just how little he’d noticed any conflict of hers that was internal. They’d both been too busy: pretending that conflict between the two of them proved that they cared, and saving the world when they were on the clock, to have sat down and talked about it. 

Not that talking’s really an option right now, not with their lungs constricted and her head resting on his shoulder with a magnetic closeness; and that’s exactly why’s he surprised when she starts inching away from him, and the look on her face looks more nervous than anything else, nervous with the same hint of bashfulness she’d had as a young twenty-something...

But then it hits him - when he remembers seeing her like this back then, back when they’d only just met and had no idea where they stood with each other - and he’s the one to act, kissing her as though one of them were actually about to die. She pulls him tighter again, and this time the pressure of her fingers digging into his back hurts, but he’s just as incapable of letting go as he had been moments before, and it ceases to matter for some time. He’s not quite sure how long, because he doesn’t know anything but the feeling of Bobbi against him again until a voice beckoning him by name at the entryway pulls the moment to a screeching, unpleasant halt. 

The intruder’s shuffling away by the time Lance has turned around, but he knows whose voice he heard.

“Fitz!” he shouts, and Fitz slowly moves back through the doorway.

“So very sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt, I’ll just be going,” he stammers in apology.

“You obviously came here for a reason, yes?”

“Ah, yes. Coulson wants to see you.”

Lance purses his lips awkwardly, but stands up, and Bobbi lets go of his hand with a reluctance that he’s desperately missed. He leans over and presses a kiss to her forehead, then gestures at the tray, still bearing their beers and pasta. 

“Eat,” he orders, smiling at her and her beautiful rolling eyes, on his and Fitz’s way out of the room.

“Still a jackass!” she calls after him, but her voice is too full of hope to give off the annoyance she’s trying for. 

As they turn a corner, Fitz tries to apologize again, and Lance cuts him off.

“Just leave it, mate,” he says, clapping a hand onto Fitz’s shoulder.

“I - okay…” Fitz agrees tentatively, and Lance stops them in their path, giving him an expectant look.

“How did you even…?” Fitz fumbles, his face both a bit red and full of curiosity.

“We’re gonna need to talk about Simmons, aren’t we?” Lance realizes with eyebrows raised, and Fitz looks taken aback for a moment, ready to respond with offense.

“I - yeah.”

“After we talk to Coulson, mate,” he grins, and they continue down the corridor.

Leaving the meeting twenty minutes later, he realizes that a text notification's come up on his phone, and he pries it from his trouser pocket. 

Bobbi. Naturally.

_"So do I have to tell you I hated dinner in order to get a date or what?"_


End file.
